My artifact is a picture of my great-grandparents. This was taken at the time of their engagement. My great-grandfather, Morris, was born in Russia and came to the United States in 1907. He went on this whole journey by himself. My great-grandmother was also born in Russia, but came over to the U.S. with her family when she was young. They met in Philadelphia and got married.
When my great-grandfather was in Russia, he never was registered for the draft. The reason of this is that the Russians were trying to convert all of the Jews into Christians and if you didn't, you would have to serve in the army for 25 years. Because of this, he had to leave the country when he was 17 because the government would probably figure out that he wasn't registered. When he came to the U.S. though, he entered the draft for both World War I and World War II.